MARY COOK
AUDIO-INTERVIEW
Mary: Hello...you sure you can hear me...because I am sitting next to you...oh...what am I going to tell you then?
Fabian: You could uh, tell me a story about Wesakechak, or a legend about someplace, maybe a story about Pelican.
Mary: I'm going to tell you a story about how Pelican Narrows got its name. Actually it's called "Scary Narrows" from a time when people there were so scared. When this story starts the husbands had gone, the husbands of the women who were left behind at Pelican Narrows. There were only two men left behind, two old men. These old men were the ones that the people thought were the wisest ones that could take care of their children and their wives.
In the spring-time when trapping season is over, the trappers would take their furs down east to sell. They took the furs to a place called Kitchwaskahikanihk, which I think is now Norway House. One early spring the men gathered all their furs and they were going to take them and sell them. So they chose those two old men, the wisest ones that they could think of and left them behind with their children and wives.
There are two sides to Pelican Narrows you know ah... there's a hill that separates the reserve people and on this side of that village it used to be Roman Catholic side and the other side was Anglican side. That's where Anglicans used to live. The two old men that stayed behind each took half of the people and camped on either side of the hill.
So the husbands left, but they had to paddle their way, they didn't have any motors or anything like that. I guess they used to go in groups, and they would be two or four men to each canoe, so that they could travel faster. That spring they went to sell their furs and they had to leave their families behind.
The women had to support themselves, like fishing and snaring I guess. That was the only means of getting food, or maybe even some of them use to go hunting because I heard that people were really energetic and strong.
So...ah...These southern Indians from down south...(whispers) we call the Pwatuk (laughs). I don't even know...Blackfoot, must have been Blackfoot... These people travelled, I don't know where they travelled from, they must have travelled a long ways. But they knew where they were going. Where their leader, another old man was going to tell them where to strike. They were travelling down the Churchill River, and then when they came nearer to Pelican Narrows they stopped at a place, its called greeting place, like when a person waits for something to happen, or somebody. So ah... they stayed there all day because the old Pwatuk leader said the men are not all gone yet. He wanted to make sure all those men were gone, before they went to strike the people.
And uh... in the evening he said well we'll go now. And all those women and children were in bed I guess when they started landing along the shores of Pelican Narrows, that settlement area, where the people were living.
Now, remember I told you there were two men that were left behind at Pelican Narrows by the husbands. Earlier that day, one of those old men said "I better go see my partner" he said, "cause I think somebody is coming or something is going to happen. And I do not like that". And so he went to visit his friend and he said "You know my friend something that is not good is going to happen here" he said. And then ah... that other old man said "Humph" he said he didn't believe that, "No body is going to sneak up on me. Even in the night-time when I am supposed to be deeply sleeping when a mouse runs outside my tepee I can hear it", he said. (Laughs) He must have had sharp ears eh?...(Laughs)... And this old man did not believe his friend.
So, well the first old man told his people to get ready because something was going to happen that night. All those women, I guess, got ready. I bet you a lot of them were not sleeping when those people landed along their shore. But the other old man never said any thing to his people. I guess he was thinking "He's just trying to scare me just because there is only two of us here he thought".
But there was a lady who was part of the second man's group who was near by when those men were visiting. And ah... she took her son and she had lots of moose fat, she put that in a bag, and meat. She was making plans for herself and her son. And then she left before it was getting too dark. And she didn't want to leave when, while it was light enough for someone to see her leaving. She left and went into the woods. And ah... they were there and they could hear the people screaming and hollering. And ah... I suppose the other Indians had guns and stuff like that, or maybe some of those women had guns maybe. Who knows, but they were trying to fight those people. But they just couldn't win.
And so ah... the Pwatuk thought that they killed all our people, and there was another lady that took off from there, from their camp, and went along the shore to the bay of that Pelican Narrows area. There's a little island, there's a little bay there, a little island a little off shore from there. And that's where she was waiting. She knew that they would be coming along.
She was trying to think of what she could do, to hide from them. Then she heard the dogs barking in the bush, and so she took off her clothes and just dipped into the water and she was lying underneath the water with a tube in her mouth so she could breath through that. And then ah... those Pwatuk came there looking for people. And they had dogs. Those dogs I guess just about went in the water to check up on her. But she wasn't caught. And she stayed there for a long time, I guess she said she was so stiff in her arms and legs, she didn't have any feeling in them. She stayed there for a long time she said. Afterwards, she told the people what happened. "But I fooled them" she said, "because they thought that, they didn't see me, I covered myself with leaves", You know those little lily patties that grow along the shore. That's what she covered herself with. And they couldn't see that she was lying there underneath the water.
And so ah... well with that other woman who went with her son, when the Pwatuk, after they had thought that they had killed that all those people on that first time where they landed. They checked into the bushes and they had dogs with them searching dogs. And so ah... that lady that went with her son, went underneath a tree stump, the tree had fallen over and you know the way, how the branches, not the branches the roots, they, they're, sometimes there's overhanging. And ah... all those roots were covering, kind of making a place like a cave, and they couldn't see anything.
So when those dogs came there she took a little piece of that moose fat that she had kept and she threw it at them and one of them took it and just ran off with it. And so the men didn't look in there, didn't make sure that there was nobody there. Because the dogs just ran by it. And that's how she saved her son and herself. And then I guess she had to wait there for a long time. Because those people didn't leave right away, they knew that. And I guess after that, after they thought that they had cleaned up the place.
Now remember that a lot of those women and children that was... in care of the first old man from Pelican Narrows that knew that something was going to happen, told his people his women, the people he was keeping, told them to... to get ready and put everything in their canoes that they could use because they were going to flee across the lake. And that's what they did.
First, he caused the water to be fogged up so that the Pwatuk, that were going to come to their side of the village, it was so foggy that they couldn't see anything at first, and then those women that went with the first old man, they went across to that place. There was a hill over there, across there that's where they were looking at the people that were left behind. And they could see that there were lots and lots of people, lots and lots of canoes over there. And when the Pwatuk, when those people left, their canoes were filled with people, women, and children. And that's how the first old man saved his tribe. He saw where his people had gone and he said "I can see them where they are now", he said, "and the husbands, our men are coming back now".
And then so when those trappers came in, they found out that their people were taken away. There were only two women that got away from them, that hid from those other Indians. And they told them what happened, and what happened to those other people that were not the ones that the old man had told to go across the lake.
And then ah... and then after those Pwatuk were gone, they took the canoe route from Pelican to Deschambault, that's the route hey took, I guess because of the rivers that go up the river, nearer to their place. Probably to Ballentyne River or, I don't know if it's there or that Wapuskow, Wahpuskow Sihpi, and so ah... they went that way.
After a while they did not want the little kids with them any more, and do you know what they did to those little kids? They left them on a reef, on a little island. They left them there and those Pwatuk were laughing at them. Saying that they sounded like little seagulls. Because they were so crowded on that reef, that they were pushing each other in the water.
And so ah... I guess the first old man was saying "I can see them, they're leaving the little ones to die on a reef". And ah... He said "I can see a lot of little children pushing each other into the water because the reef that they're on is so small they can not all stand on dry ground".
And then ah... he asked the men who had returned "somebody take me over there and I'll show that old man what he deserves", he said. He meant the old man who was the Pwatuk leader. So ah... Those men went after them, and then at the night they had to wait so they could surprise them, but those men must have been tired from all that paddling, against the river, cause its really hard paddling against the current.
And so um... They waited until it was evening and they, some of them tried to get the attention of the women so that they could tell them what to do, because that's what that old man told those men to do. Go and tell those women to, while those men are busy, to get there guns and put water in them. So that is what those women did. Because I guess, those men were having a party, after they had done away with a lot of our people.
And then our men went and surprised the Pwatuk that were sleeping. And I guess, the first was getting madder and madder because he wanted to get a hold of the old man that was the boss of these Pwatuk men that came down there. Maybe we could call him the captain of that army... ah, and so finally they woke them up and those men went down to the canoes to get their guns, none of them worked. So they just had to take it, without any weapons, because their guns wouldn't shoot, because they were all filled with water...
Ah... Boy that first old man must have been smart eh... So even though the guns were just new things, yet he knew how to make them not work.
And so, finally they came to that old man, the one that led the Pwatuk, and the first old man was there, he said to the Pwatuk leader, "Astam my friend, let's go talk, let's go tell stories", he said. And then the Pwatuk leader took his tobacco and his pipe and that other old man that invited that ... asanimi... he said well, they had went to find a place where they could sit down, a flat rock where they could sit down, smoke their pipes, and tell stories.
Then the old man that led the Pwatuk told him how they came to Pelican Narrows, where they waited for the sun to go down. And then that old Pwatuk man said "It was so funny when we left those little kids on the reef on a little island. They were so crowded they started to push each other into the water and they looked like little sea gulls when they are hatching.
They were over crowded and they sounded like sea gulls". Then that made the first old man mad. It got him so angry that he stood up and got a hold of the old Pwatuk man's head. He cut of his scalp he said "You made mad when you said that this is what I could have done to you a long time ago". They must have met another time, otherwise he wouldn't have said that, and ah... so he killed him there. He got the Pwatuk leader by turning around and scalping him...
That's why they call Deschambault "Kimosom Pwatinak", because there was that old Pwatak that was killed in that area.
INTERVIEW WITH: Mary Cook
COMMUNITY: La Ronge
DATE: November 29, 2000
INTERVIEWER: Fabian Ratt
Write: Lac la Ronge Indian Band Education, Box 480, La Ronge, SK. S0J 1L0